


Stories About the Stark Assassination

by void_star



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1991 August Coup, Agent Carter Spoilers, Battle of Finau, Canon-Typical Violence, Cold War, Gen, Soviet History, Standard Winter Soldier Warning Package, Suicide mention, Zhigulis are not fast cars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6407458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_star/pseuds/void_star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short, mutually contradictory stories about the circumstances surrounding Howard and Maria's deaths.  (Sometimes the Winter Soldier is involved, sometimes he isn't.)   </p><p>1. The Battle of Finau</p><p>2. The Accident</p><p>3. The Fall of the Soviet Union</p><p>4.  The Time-Sensitive Emergency</p><p>5. The Gaslighting Operation (not yet up)</p><p>[other titles will be added as I figure them out]</p><p>Summaries of each ficlet are listed in the note at the beginning of the fic, because I ran out of characters trying to list them all here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Battle of Finau

**Author's Note:**

> Contents (with summaries): 
> 
> 1\. The Battle of Finau  
> Brainwashing alone is enough to get strict compliance, but the Winter Soldier performs better when he understands exactly why the target needs to die. Pierce knows the perfect story to help explain; parts of it are even true.
> 
> 2\. The Accident  
> Hydra wants Howard's death to look like an accident. The Winter Soldier specializes in shooting people, which doesn't usually look very accidental.
> 
> 3\. The Fall of the Soviet Union  
> Sometimes history doesn't cooperate, and it can't be changed either. Late in 1991, Russian Hydra agents are scrambling to make sure they at least end up on the winning side, and throwing all available resources at the problem.  
> So they're less than pleased when their American counterparts choose _now_ of all times to request the use of the Winter Soldier. 
> 
> 4\. The Time-Sensitive Emergency  
> Howard Stark finds out about Hydra, so they have to act fast to silence him. 
> 
> 5\. The Gaslighting Operation (not yet up)  
> “This is a psychological operation, not an assassination. Understand?” 
> 
> [other titles and summaries will be added as I figure them out]

The effects of cryo were fading from the soldier’s body, but the splitting headache from being wiped was still going strong after…however long it had been since the wipe.  Being escorted between different windowless rooms through windowless hallways didn’t help the soldier’s already weak grasp on time.  

“He’s been out two days, if you give him the briefing now it should stick,” someone said in the next room over.  

 _Okay, two days.  Splitting headache going strong for two whole days._   

Pierce walked into the room.  The soldier wondered if he had always looked so old.  The soldier also wondered if he’d brought painkillers.  Pierce pulled up a stool and sat directly in front of the soldier, getting down on his level instead of lecturing from above.  The soldier glanced at Pierce’s face before breaking eye contact again like he was supposed to.  

Pierce fiddled with the file he was holding for a moment before speaking. 

“Let me tell you about the Battle of Finau…  

“During World War II, a scientist named Howard Stark developed a psychoactive chemical agent called ‘Midnight Oil’.  Inhaling even a small amount causes anger, hallucinations, and uncontrollable homicidal urges.  Very nasty stuff.  We can only assume he intended it as a particularly brutal way of eliminating Axis troops, by making them kill each other.”  Pierce paused, looking very sad.  “For reasons I can only guess at, he decided to test it on loyal Soviet soldiers.”  

The soldier had been rolling the alien phrase ‘World War II’ around his mind, so he took a moment to process the rest of what Pierce said.  

Deep, visceral anger that someone thought they had the right  _to just mess with people’s heads_  clashed with the knowledge that  _of course_  Hydra had the right to experiment on him, resulting in a confusing tangle of emotions.  

“They tore each other apart; bodies were piled on each other, beaten, bitten, scratched, eyes gouged out.”  Pierce opened the file to show the soldier pictures of the aftermath. 

There was a coppery smell, blurred screaming, flesh under clawing fingers, and burning lungs; the soldier could  _feel_  the all-encompassing rage that would cause the damage in the photos. 

“Two hundred and forty seven men died that day, many of them eighteen and nineteen years old.  Because  _Howard Stark_ ,” Pierce continued, “decided to use his own allies as disposable lab rats.”  

Pierce’s face, voice, and body all communicated that he was upset, which probably meant the soldier was supposed to be upset too, which would mean the soldier was  _allowed_  to be upset.  

“After the battle, everyone just assumed they had been killed by German troops, not suspecting that one man’s treachery could cause such a gruesome massacre.”  Pierce’s face went hard.  “Howard Stark needs to be stopped.   _You_  need to stop him.”  

The soldier was allowed to be upset.  Howard Stark had no right to mess with people’s heads and the soldier was allowed to be upset about that.  

“We’ve waited a long time for this opportunity to strike; we can’t afford to waste it on second-rate operatives who might fail to complete the mission.” 

The soldier was pretty sure that was his cue to say something.  

“He won’t touch anyone ever again,” said the soldier.  

Pierce smiled, and patted the soldier on the shoulder.  Pierce then stood and walked away, signaling the technicians before he left the room.  The men in lab coats converged on the soldier, adjusting equipment and setting up an IV.  

“Where’d the tape with the technical briefing go?”  

“Over there, under that stack of files.”  

“Why’s it under a bunch of files?”  

“Because  _somebody_  doesn’t pay any attention to where he leaves his stuff.”  

The soldier felt slightly dizzy at the thought of inflicting consequences on the sort of person who liked messing with other people’s heads. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of Finau is from Agent Carter; Pierce changed or left out the following facts:  
> -'Midnight Oil' was supposed to help people stay awake longer, but had some unintended side effects (the ones Pierce describes and also asphyxiation)  
> -Howard never agreed to testing it on Soviet troops, some guy named General John McGinnis broke into his lab and stole the samples


	2. The Accident

“So, we know we want to eliminate Howard Stark, and we know we want it to look like an accident,” said Pierce. “Now we need to figure out who to send.”

“What about the Winter Soldier?” said Mitchell Carson.

Pierce squinted at him. “We want it to look like an accident.”

“Yeah,” said Carson.

“In what way does a Soviet rifle bullet to the head look like an accident?” said Pierce.

“Ummm…he could shoot out Stark’s tires while he’s driving, causing a car accident,” said Carson.

“Ah yes, it’s not like investigators finding a bullet in the tires would raise any suspicions,” said Pierce.

“He could sneak past Stark’s security and cut the brake lines,” said Carson.

“And then Stark will get in a minor accident right after he pulls out of the driveway,” said Pierce.

“Ummm, he could…uh…”

“What if we ignore your weird obsession with the Winter Soldier, and get someone who specializes in cars to sabotage Stark’s car so that it will fail after a delay?” said Pierce. “And we carry out the operation while Stark’s at a restaurant or something, thus avoiding both Stark’s security and SHIELD’s?”

There was a pause.

“I mean, that _could_ work, if you want to be boring,” said Carson.

Pierce rolled his eyes.


	3. The Fall of the Soviet Union

Agent Petrova flipped up the hidden panel and punched in the combination. The door to the secret base slid open.

“Hail Hydra!” said one of the guards stationed inside.

“Whatever,” Petrova said, and kept walking.

After years of stress and scrambling, she had no enthusiasm left. The Soviet Union was falling to pieces, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Hydra had tried, of course; they had decades’ worth of plans that assumed the USSR would still be around. When rationing was inflicted on the populace for the first time since the Great Patriotic War, it was _‘nothing we haven’t faced before’_. When the new public-voicing policy meant that people could scream to their hearts’ content about the disastrous results of Mikhail Gorbachev’s restructuring, it was _‘this will remind the Party why people can’t be trusted with their own freedom’_. Same for when the Soviet Socialist Republics that were _supposed_ to be a Union started hoarding their food instead of distributing it, or when fighting broke out between ethnic groups.

When republics started declaring their independence left and right, it was _‘we can still salvage this’_. They deployed the Winter Soldier more times in two years than they had in the previous ten. With each mission, the creeping dread that even this would not be enough grew in Petrova’s gut.

By August 1991, the branch of Hydra embedded in the KGB was desperately clinging to a thin veneer of denial, refusing to commit to any action that might compromise their position with the current government. So of course that’s when Party hard-liners decided to stage a coup, leading to an internationally televised standoff with Russian officials lead by Boris Yeltsin. The men leading the coup had no chance of winning in the long-term, so Petrova and her fellow agents worked quickly to forge an alliance with someone who did. The Winter Soldier was still out of cryo from a previous mission; they approached Yeltsin with some bullshit about ‘a faction within the KGB sympathetic to your cause’ and put an end to the coup to demonstrate their usefulness and ‘loyalty’.

Then they sent someone to assure Gorbachev, who had been put under house arrest during the coup, that they were loyal to _him_ and had ended the coup for _his_ sake.

Petrova blinked at her office door in front of her; she dragged herself back to the present and went in.

* * *

“So are we betting on Gorbachev or Yeltsin?” said Agent Utkin.

“We’re maintaining relations with both,” said Petrova, sifting through the reports and messages on her desk.

“Yeah, but if we can’t maintain an alliance with both, which one do we go with?” said Utkin.

“How am I supposed to know? I don’t have clearance for half the relevant intelligence reports. It’s Kuznetsov’s job,” said Petrova.

“Kuznetsov hasn’t shown up here for four days,” said Agent Mihaylov.

“Wait. He was supposed to be back by now,” said Petrova.

She quickly considered Hydra’s options. If something had happened to Kuznetsov, there could be an ambush waiting for any team sent to investigate.   Then again, unless the cryo team had been _especially_ prompt after the last mission…

“Send a team to investigate, and send the Winter Soldier with them as a bodyguard. I’d like to see the ambush that’s prepared to take _him_ on.”

Usually the Winter Soldier was only used for special occasions, missions that had been planned months in advance, but there was nothing _usual_ about the current situation.

“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea? It’s been a while since his last wipe, and he’s started to openly complain,” said Utkin.

“What about?” said Petrova.

“The abundance of snow, the quality of the food, the unsuitability of Zhiguli cars as getaway vehicles…stuff like that,” said Mihaylov. “I’m pretty sure it’s because Mitka went and explained glasnost to him, rather than because his programming is breaking down.”

“Oh, he thinks that applies to him? Greaaaat,” said Petrova, rubbing her temples. “Utkin, go check and make sure there aren’t any misfiled communications from Kuznetsov. If there are, we plan accordingly; if there aren’t, we send the Winter Soldier with the investigation team and deal with the behavioral issues afterwards.”

Utkin left the room. Petrova briefly fantasized about strangling Gorbachev for thinking that allowing public voicing of opinions could _possibly_ be a good idea, then returned to the stack of papers on her desk.

A message from the branch of Hydra within SHIELD caught her eye. Images flooded Petrova’s mind—it was an offer of resources, it was an intelligence report that would help her do her job, it was a concrete set of instructions she could follow that would ensure Hydra’s future survival—and she quickly opened it.

ASSET TRANSFER REQUEST

_Asset identification: codename ‘Winter Soldier’_

_Transfer date: December 15, 1991_

_Reason for transfer: eliminate target Howard Stark_

Petrova stared.

“What is it?” said Mihaylov.

Petrova wordlessly handed over the message, not caring enough to wonder if Mihaylov had clearance or not.

“What the _fuck_?” he said. “Who’s Howard Stark?”

“An inventor. With no combat training. Who works at SHIELD, so their window for assassinating him is pretty much infinite,” said Petrova.

“Is this a joke? Don’t they know what’s going on over here?”

“That’s what _I_ was going to ask, because there’s no way in hell we’re transferring the Winter Soldier right now,” said Petrova.

Mihaylov looked relieved. “So how are you going to respond?”

* * *

Petrova considered asking SHIELD-Hydra if they’d been living under a rock. She considered giving a detailed list of obscene actions they could perform on themselves. She considered responding almost exclusively in swear words.

In the end, she wrote back, “Assassinate your own damn scientist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apart from the bits with Hydra and the Winter Soldier, all the history mentioned in this fic should be accurate. 
> 
> World War II is called 'The Great Patriotic War' in Russia. 
> 
> Mikhail Gorbachev was the last general secretary of the Soviet Union; he is well-known for glasnost ("public voicing") and perestroika ("restructuring"), as well as for being the guy in charge when everything fell apart. Perestroika ended up causing food shortages; the situation was made worse by inadequate distribution of what food there was. 
> 
> The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had an overarching government for the whole nation as well as smaller government structures in charge of each republic. For a lot of Soviet history, all the republics were equal in theory but Russia was in charge in practice. However, as republics started to declare independence from the USSR in 1990 and 1991 it turned out that Boris Yeltsin, the guy in charge of Russia, was in favor of breaking up the Soviet Union; hence how there could be a standoff between Russian officials and the Soviet government during the August Coup (well, that and the fact that the 'government' was a bunch of guys who had just staged a coup, so their legitimacy was questionable). 
> 
> What happened after the timeframe of this fic is that Yeltsin met with the leaders of Ukraine and Byelorussia to formally dissolve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev gave his resignation speech December 25th, 1991.  
> Unless I am misremembering, the newspaper about the Starks' deaths in CA:TWS lists the date as December 21st, 1991.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one the "Suicide Mention" tag is for

The phone rang. Linda finished the sentence she was reading, then put down the schedule book and picked up the phone.

“Secretary Pierce’s office, how can I help you?” she said, still thinking about the logistics of Pierce’s upcoming appointments.

The answer made her spine straighten and her eyes widen.

Linda stepped into the room where Pierce was in the middle of a meeting, and moved to his side as efficiently as she could without looking hurried.

“Stark knows,” she whispered into his ear.

* * *

“We have to silence him before Carter finds out,” said Pierce.

He left the rest unsaid. In theory she was off the grid somewhere in South America, but Hydra hadn’t survived this long by underestimating Peggy Carter. _And now, just when we thought we’d make it to her retirement without incident…_

“Where is Stark now?” he said.

“On the move, driving down Third Street,” said Carson.

“Has he contacted anyone?” said Pierce.

“Not yet, that we know of,” said Linda.

“His wife’s in the car with him,” said Carson.

That meant she could be eliminated at the same time. _Not an issue._

“We need to send someone to intercept him, immediately,” said Pierce.

They could send someone to do an obvious hit, or they could send someone to cause a lethal accident. Different candidates would be best for each strategy, but either way Hydra was limited by who could get there fast enough.

“We could send the Winter Soldier,” said Carson.

Pierce allowed himself a moment to just stare.

“Do you have _any idea_ how _long_ it takes to activate the Winter Soldier?” he finally said. “You have to wait for him to defrost, you have to wait while he’s wiped, you have to wait through the standard re-education procedure, the handler-assignment procedure, the physical and cognitive testing, _and_ the mission briefing before he’s ready to go. And that’s not even counting the process of authorizing his deployment or the travel time from his storage location to the target.”

Pierce rubbed his temples. There was no way Carter would retire before finishing the investigation if she knew Stark was murdered. _So. We sacrifice an agent._

Linda walked over to Pierce and handed him a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of our members who are currently in the area. I crossed out the ones likely to lead back to us if they’re identified.”

Pierce quickly scanned the list, skipping over the competent ones and the SHIELD agents.

“I want the files on this guy’s family members,” he said to Linda, pointing to a name on the list, “in case loyalty alone isn’t enough to convince him to do this.”

Linda hurried out of the room; Pierce thought slightly wistfully of the days when Hydra agents who _wouldn’t_ give their lives for the cause were a rare exception. Granted, it had never been as perfect as the history books claimed. When battles were going poorly enough, Hydra officers had often ‘assisted’ the suicides of younger soldiers who might lose their nerve; there was a reason Schmidt had had to specifically order his troops to fight the Howling Commandos ‘to the last man’.

Linda came back with four folders. She spread them on the table for Pierce: the agent, his wife, and two kids. Pierce dialed the phone, glancing over the files as he waited for the agent to pick up.

* * *

Several minutes later, the phone rang again. Linda picked it up; everyone else in the room held their breath while she listened.

Linda put the phone down.

“It’s done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In theory the process of getting the Winter Soldier ready could be arbitrarily short, with appropriate technobabble and handwaving, it's just that I've never seen anyone address this explicitly and the idea of the process being even remotely quick is _very_ counterintuitive to me.


End file.
